The price of Bitcoin recently topped $57,000. New York’s Attorney General issued an Investor Alert on Virtual Currency Risks, as did the SEC’s Division of Examinations. The SEC’s “crypto-mom,” Commissioner Hester Peirce has been speaking on it daily, and Chair-nominee Gensler touches on it in his March 2 remarks before the Senate Banking Committee.
SEC Chair Nominee Gary Gensler’s prepared remarks for his March 2 hearing before the Senate Banking Committee indicate he will focus on FinTech:
Markets—and technology—are always changing. Our rules have to change ...
The price of Bitcoin recently topped $57,000. New York’s Attorney General issued an Investor Alert on Virtual Currency Risks, as did the SEC’s Division of Examinations. The SEC’s “crypto-mom,” Commissioner Hester Peirce has been speaking on it daily, and Chair-nominee Gensler touches on it in his March 2 remarks before the Senate Banking Committee.
SEC Chair Nominee Gary Gensler’s prepared remarks for his Mar. 2 hearing before the Senate Banking Committee indicate he will focus on fintech:
Markets—and technology—are always changing. Our rules have to change ...
In an SEC filing, Friday, February 26, Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities disclosed they are negotiating with FINRA, the SEC, and state regulators, attempting to settle investigations into options-trading and outages from March 2020.
The investigations focus on Robinhood’s options-trading approval processes and how the app displays cash and buying power to customers. Similar issues were involved in the GameStop (“GME”) imbroglio earlier this year. Congress and various regulators continue to examine the GME situation.
The Companies disclosed they have ...
Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee issued a February 24 statement directing the Commission Staff to review public-company climate-change-related disclosures. The Staff will assess current disclosures in light of the SEC’s prior 2010 guidance and “update” that guidance.
The prior guidance did not mandate specific climate disclosures, but instead focused on how climate-change issues might affect existing disclosure obligations regarding, for example, material legal compliance or litigation issues, material risks, and the effect of known trends, developments or a ...
The Deposit Trust & Clearing Corp. (“DTCC”) released a February 24 roadmap for shortening the settlement cycle for US equities by half over the next two years. The proposal anticipates DTCC’s completion of its “Project ION” using distributed ledger technology (“DLT”) to integrate and speed clearing and settlement processes. Moving to a shorter settlement cycle would reduce industry costs, market risk, and lower margin requirements.
The clearing and settlement process was front and center at the House Financial Services Committee’s February 18, 2021 hearing ...
The U.S. Climate Finance Working Group released its February 18, 2021 policy statement, “Financing a U.S. Transition to a Sustainable Low-Carbon Economy.” The Working Group comprises eleven of America’s leading financial-services industry associations, broadly representing “Wall Street.”
With climate-change initiatives among the top priorities announced by the new Biden administration, the Working Group
“seeks to engage with incoming leaders and members of Congress on a bipartisan basis to help establish a shared vision for U.S. climate policy. By so doing ...
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”) recently proposed sweeping modernization of industry self-regulatory rules to reflect firms’ successful pivot to remote operations over the past year. SIFMA suggests significant remote work likely will continue, even after the COVID-19 “pilot program.”
SIFMA proposed a “location agnostic” overhaul of the Rules in its February 16 comment letter in response to FINRA’s call for “lessons learned” during the COVID-19 pandemic. See FINRA Reg. Notice 20-42 (Dec. 16, 2020).
Firms’ ...
Republican-appointee Commissioners Roisman and Peirce issued a statement on February 12 publicly disagreeing with Acting Chair Lee’s recent fiat discontinuing the Enforcement Division’s practice of proposing settlements that are contingent upon the Commission’s approval of waivers for collateral disqualifications arising from the settlement.
The Commission’s actions on enforcement settlements and waiver requests were separate processes until 2019, when the Commission changed its policy to allow them to be considered together. That made sense, because they ...
On February 11, SEC Acting Chair Lee announced that the Commission no longer would permit settlements in enforcement actions to include, or be contingent on the grant of, waivers of statutory disqualifications that flow from certain securities offenses.
Various securities offenses statutorily disqualify Respondents from certain regulated activities, for example, participating in a Reg. D private offering or acting in some capacities for an investment company. Those statutes, however, also vest the Commission with the discretion to waive those disqualifications, often ...
The Wall Street Journal reports traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum – the same social medium that helped fuel the GameStop short squeeze – have started bidding up cannabis stocks. Mentions on the forum jumping from near zero to over 8,000 in just a few days. WallStreetBets Traders Set Cannabis Stocks Alight (Wall St. J., Feb. 11, 2021), is here.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the day before, FINRA issued a Special Alert reminding firms of their regulatory obligations regarding low-priced, often volatile, stocks. The Alert is to
“help FINRA member firms that engage in ...